This. So many creationists like to claim something like, “The two sides are just interpreting the same evidence differently!” Of course, no one has any business making such a claim without significant familiarity with the evidence her/himself–the actual evidence.
This is why we see so much avoidance of evidence, coupled with a pretense that rhetoric is the evidence.
Well, as we have seen, the varves are right out there in the open for anyone to see. All the YEC’s have to do is count them for themselves. Should be easy. It doesn’t take all that long to count to 6000, does it?
Can you explain why the Creation Scientists have not done this, @thoughtful?
The creationist position requires the belief that scientists are too stupid and/or biased to spot obvious cases of circular reasoning and question begging assumptions in the subjects of their own expertise.
Meanwhile creationist organizations have faith-statements that literally assume that creationism must be true by definition and that contradictory evidence must be wrong.
I am continuously astonished that amateur creationists would obviously(and rightly) immediately dismiss a scientific organization that had said something to a similar effect, but that they still swallow the crap that comes out of creationist organizations even when made aware of the fact that creationist organizations have these patently irrational methodologies they are contractually obliged to adhere to.
Generally, the fixation YEC has with the age implications of mainstream earth science is completely unrequited. Scientists are interested in the details of what happened and what were the conditions over the epochs; the mere fact the earth is old is beyond long established. Thus, it falls to those with a particular interest in countering creationist misinformation to apply the implications of scientific evidence specifically to the origins conversation. One such evangelical Christian, Scott Buchanan, followed up on the Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth paper with a carefully argued and reasonably extensive article expanding on the challenge varves present to the YEC timeline - this time focusing on lakes in Sweden and Germany which contradict a young earth, and are further synchronized by tephra’s from known volcanic eruptions.
Annual Layers (Varves) in Lake Sediments Show the Earth Is Not Young
In the young earth (YE) creationist model the earth was created about 6000 years ago, and about 4400 years ago, the entire surface of the world was scoured by a global flood which covered the highest mountains and eroded and deposited stupendous amounts of material. If this picture is physically accurate, should be no lake anywhere where continuous varve counts go back more than about 4400 years. However, for a number of European lakes, including a Swiss lake near Interlaken and the two Swedish lakes and the two German lakes described in some detail above, we can observe well-defined annual layers which can be counted back through the presumed flood era (4400 years ago, or c. 2400 B.C.), with no significant disturbance whatsoever. These varves can be counted even further back, well beyond the supposed 6000 year old (c. 4000 B.C.) date of creation of the earth itself, and are independently confirmed by radiocarbon dating of the sediment layers.
The earlier Davidson and Wolgemuth article noted that despite YEC criticism of C14 dating, the technique yielded results supporting the identity of Jerusalem’s Siloam Tunnel with the work of Hezekiah described in II Kings 20:20
As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
This instance presents a bit of a gotcha for YEC - how to discredit the reliability of the 14C dating without undermining the Biblical telling. Well, never say die. Here is the head smacking response from AiG / CMI.
Even here, however, Davidson and Wolgemuth oversimplify things. Even these radiocarbon dates were obtained with the use of a calibration curve, after correcting for isotopic fractionation! …
Thus uniformitarian scientists use calibration curves even for relatively young artifacts! So even when the radiocarbon age apparently confirms the biblical age, Davidson and Wolgemuth are still underestimating the difficulties associated with the method!
This reply is underwhelming. First note there are only a miserly three exclamation marks, one per sentence. The argument could be strengthened with several more!!! Also, the three instances of the word “even” would be more compelling if they were in bold italic with spaced capitals - E V E N . Seriously now, does the entirety of their objection lay in calibration curves being used?
C14 dating, like all radiometric dating, involves exponential decay and in principle given a half life, stable atmospheric content and uptake, you could solve for age like a high school physics problem and windup somewhere in the ballpark. In practice, nobody has analyzed C14 results this way for decades. Instead, a succession of progressively refined standard calibration curves has been issued out of international collaborations referred to as Intcal, the most recent of which is Intcal20. YEC avoids discussing how the calibration curves are developed to begin with. These standards are based on absolute chronologies such as multiple geographically diverse tree rings sequences and varves, thus capturing variations due to environment and solar effects, and yielding much more reliable results. For the many AMS dating facilities around the world, applying the calibration curve, and the 13C fraction, is not the least bit difficult; it is routine and built into the software.
This is somewhat akin, in my world, to custody transfer of natural gas. The basic ideal gas law is applicable, but nobody in the industry would dream of transferring gas based on it. Instead, due to the sums of money at stake, much more complex equations of state and piping geometry corrections are applied to account for even miniscule real gas effects. Complexity does not always hide malfeasance. Accuracy sometimes requires some complexity to take account of multiple factors in nature; you cannot be simplistic where reality is complex.
The insinuation seems to be that scientists introduce complexity by way of their efforts to fudge results to agree with their purported uniformitarian presuppositions, but even disregarding the calibration curve and going from the basic decay rate, 14C dating would contradict YEC. To offer the Intcal calibration curves as an argument against the reliability of C14 dating is profoundly ignorant and is a rhetorical device to cover for the lack of any genuine counter. And the question of course remains, if the 14C calibration is erroneous, why do the results match up with expected historical dates, such as Hezekiah’s tunnel?
I am curious how you interpret the varves of Mount Saint Helens.
I mention this as it is a known date with a known period.
As such it bypasses any YEC argument of assuming varve time scales, due to the known date.
(or ‘the lost squadron’ where P-38 lightnings were found 300 feet under the ice, buried under thousands of annual varves.)
250-300 feet of ice, yes. There is good reason those planes went down in a blizzard. As for thousands of annual layers - that should require a citation.
Your computer doesn’t have a search engine?
I apologize, under further research I see I have confused Ice-Rings with Varve. I believed the terms were interchangeable as I believed varves were just “cycles or annual layers”. Not realizing what I was actually saying was the P-38’s were buried under thousands of layers of annual sediment.
I got my information on the varve layers in the link at the bottom. I was speculating with the commonality between Sweeden and Greenland, that assuming the Koge Bay Glacier is similar to Greenlands was not much of a stretch. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the lost squadrons as they were under ice not sediment.
So I should have stated “buried under thousands of annual ice rings” not “varves”. And even this would have been incorrect as it is not thousands as I believed, since again, varves are not ice.
This being said I have found ice core data from 1998.
The closest location to where I assume the aircraft was found is core 6345 located at 63.8N 45.0W
At a depth of 14m they reached the year 1977. Assuming constant thickness of ice rings (assuming compression does not exist). At a depth of 91m would be the year would mean the P-38 was buried in the year 1865 (assuming 1992 for the dig). The p-38 landed gear up, so instead of the 4meter height we can assume 3m. Taking 3m away from the age would put the P-38 at 1869 a.d.
If we take cores GITS for comparison and assume similar compression in core 6345.
GITS-2 has a compression level of 2.08y/m at 120.5m and GITS-1 has a compression level of 1.42y/m at 21.8m (drilled same location at the same time). We would assume at 88m of depth the P-38 lightning would be in the year 1,825 a.d.
Thank you for the correction by asking for a source.
Ice Ring ages and depths:
Incase the link does not work
Mosley-Thompson, E. et al. 2012. Local to regional-scale variability of annual net accumulation on the Greenland ice sheet from PARCA cores
I based my assumptions of varve layers from this paper. (I misunderstood that varves were specifically sediment layers and not just generic annual layers)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01273-1
My computer does have a search engine… however:
I have strong bias’s towards these topics, as such I like to hear from others points of views. As seeing this forum is heavily atheist biased and centered around discussing Science in a peaceful manner. I see better place to challenge my bias.
I understand the ice-ring topic might be heavily off topic. My goal was not to derail the C-14 topic and if it did/does I apologize.
I am not here to ruffle feathers but create discourse. My goal is to challenge my own beliefs. I believe both sides make very silly arguments but do not realize the pitfalls of their own arguments. For example: an article I read last night from here about the origins of the Young Earth Creationist movement was in severe disregard of history, culture, and frankly facts in general. I found it silly but treated as rational as I could. This is my goal, for those who are atheist to show the pitfalls of the beliefs in which I hold. As a Christian I believe in absolute truth, and I would love to understand as much of it as I can.
If you find it arbitrary or redundant, I apologize.
The ‘lost squadron’ were not found under any number of annual layers, they were found in a glacier , several miles downstream from where they landed. The ice in glaciers flows and mixes. You can no more count annual layers in a glacier than you can in a river.
Fair enough. However, on scientific questions the best approach, IMHO, is to avail oneself of the totality of available empirical evidence, and not just base one’s position on which person in a small, random sampling of people is able to make the argument whose rhetoric seems most convincing.
My suggestion, then, would be to look up the responses that have been made by scientists to the YEC “ice varve” claim, and if you don’t find them convincing bring up your counterarguments here for discussion. That OK?
I believe that your position is not a sophisticated one. The truth is not somewhere in the middle. Science is based on evidence, not laypeople’s evaluation of rhetoric.
I do not believe this to be a “…small, random sampling…”.
It’s about as random as going to Muscle Beach and surveying people near the workout-bars to gather data on the average fitness of the US population.
Considering not only the academic weight, but the eagerness for these topics that the community discusses it in their free time. I would say this is far above par for a random sample.
But I will oblige and refrain from posting unfinished thoughts in form of dialogue. Albeit, it might take me some time to get used to the culture here… I am used to more formal discussions with less qualified peoples where we talk without the fear of inaccuracies in hopes of finding the underlying truth.
After all, it is not fair for me to assume everyone is at my leisure to entertain the thoughts that come into my head. We would be here for eternity, and I suspect some of you might not have that long.
(the tongue in cheek jest is light hearted and not meant to inflame)
Welcome to the forum. Without a reference, I do cannot really respond to how you think Saint Helens may be relevant to the Lake Suigetsu and other varved lakes.
There is this paper that up that you make wish to read: Sedimentation in a Blast-Zone Lake at Mount St. Helens, Washington-Implications for Varve Formation
This report documents the strongly seasonal sedimentation response recorded in the traps and suggests that in the continued absence of vegetation, the graded clastic varves being formed would resemble those associated with a glaciolacustrine environment.
First off, there is nothing in the study to suggest that the Coldwater and Spirit Lake varves are anything but annual, as would be expected from seasonal effects. Note also that what these layers do not resemble the type found in lakes such as Suigetsu, which is not glacial, is surrounded by vegetation, and contains annual organics. One has to understand the differences. Sandwiches are layered too but that does not make ham sandwiches to be jam sandwiches. You cannot find one varve site and simple apply what you find to all others, because the annual cycles and environment which produce them can be very different.
But do not take my word for it. There is extensive publication on Lake Suigetsu. The varve record there contains records of volcanic eruptions over thousands of years, and cross correlations with other geochronology in the area and dating techniques. Familiarize yourself with the literature and see what you think.
Will do, I am about to read the paper in which you linked as I type.
Thank you.
So I read the paper, I did not study it, but I did read it in it’s entirety.
The paper talks about the effects of the aftermath and how the sedimentation of the newly formed lakes are increased due to a lack of vegetation (rough summary). What I am interested in is your opinion on the varves from the eruption itself or the theory of instantaneous stratification. I have no reason to doubt the aftermath sedimentation would resemble a pattern of before eruption. My intrigue is with the unique event of the eruption itself. It is supposed to be in a paper I cannot find due to my terrible ‘googling’ skills (they do need some serious work). Morris and Austin 2009, 50, 52–54
From reading through the forums I understand you guys hold little value or stock in ARJ. That being said, they do talk about lake Suigestu which you mentioned earlier in the forum.
I have not read all of this paper, it is quite long, but what I am of particular interest in hearing your opinion of is their claim that Lake Suigetsu is not 100,000+ Varves but less around 29,000 according to Kitigawa and Van Der Plicht 1998, 506–507
They also claim not all of the varves were visual counted and instead it was guessed at based on constant rate without evidence, as in However, Schlolaut et al. (2012, 56)
“on average as many as 50% of the varves are indistinguishable”
http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/80298/
Considering you brought up Lake Suigestu earlier in the topic, what is your opinion on their claims?
You obviously haven’t seen me with my shirt off 
Haha, I have no doubt that the two of us combined would be such a gigantic outlier we could revert nearly any population back to the norm. 
I have not read all of this paper, it is quite long, but what I am of particular interest in hearing your opinion of is their claim that Lake Suigetsu is not 100,000+ Varves but less around 29,000
One of the frustrating things about Creationists responses to Lake Suigetsu (and many topics in general) is that they are more characterized by obfuscation and rhetoric than a genuine engagement with the material. Let’s look at what the actual numbers are.
Cores have been drilled in Suigetsu multiple times. The original expedition drilled several shallow cores and one deep core that reached 75 meters. A 2006 return collected 4 new deep cores that went to a depth of 73 meters. Individual varve counting using high-resolution microscope photography and X-ray fluorescence has been ongoing. By 2013, (3 years before this paper was published in ARJ), these are what the numbers were:
approximately 31,000 varves had been logged between 12 and 32 m, with a continuous sequence of uncounted varves continuing to 41 m.
Considering that again, cores go down to 75 meters with most of it still uncounted and in 20 meters of it 31,000 varves have been counted, 100,000+ cores is a very reasonable estimate. But ARJ makes it seem like across the entire core length, only 30,000 layers have been counted and geologists pretend there are 3 times that many. I am certain that if directly asked how many total varves are likely in the formation, the ARJ authors would agree with the 100,000 number. But saying that would not help their argument, so they play word games for an easy win.
They also claim not all of the varves were visual counted and instead it was guessed at based on constant rate without evidence, as in However, Schlolaut et al. (2012, 56)
“on average as many as 50% of the varves are indistinguishable”
A more exact description of the methodology would be this:
In places where it was difficult to confidently differentiate layers, counts were estimated based on average layer thicknesses above and below the uncertain sections.
This is not an unreasonable counting method and is not based on “no evidence.” Varves are sedimentary features and as such are vulnerable to minor metamorphism, which is bound to occur when crushed under dozens of meters of rock. Again, if directly asked authors would not say this is an invalid way to count varves - in fact I can think of at least one paper on ARJ that uses exactly that kind of density forecasting to estimate fossil numbers in a formation. It’s more rhetoric games.
However, all of this is fundamentally sidestepping the real issue with Lake Suigetsu.
Let’s try to set some predictions and see what the evidence fits. From the ARJ paper:
multiple supposed varve couplets can and have formed in a single year. In fact, it has been documented that at least five pairs of varve couplets can form in a single year…
And:
Uniformitarian scientists have acknowledged that diatom blooms can occur several times per year…
And:
In fact, there have been several publications documenting that the formation of more than one tree-ring per year is a common occurrence.
Notice what the thread is here. Creationists are claiming that supposedly cyclical formations like diatom deposits, tree rings, and lake varves are not in fact annual, but arbitrary, occurring and various speeds that cannot be used for dating. And this hypothesis of non-constant speeds expands to other things as well; for example, that ice rings are not annual (can bury aircraft) and stalactites in caves can form quickly, radiocarbon can decay quickly, and sea floor ridges can spread quickly.
So, what would a prediction based on this hypothesis be? We should predict to find no salvageable patterns between any of these phenomena. After all, what effect does the tide in a lake in japan have on the number of tree rings an an oak in Germany? What possible connection could you draw between radiocarbon decay in a cave in Argentina and glacial ice layers in Antarctica?
Conversely, conventional scientists attempt to treat these phenomena as proxies for global climate in the past. A conventional prediction would be that all of these phenomena should produce cosilient patterns that can be layered on top of each other and match.
That is the point that the original paper ARJ is responding to tried to make, by comparing tree rings to Suigetsu varves through radiocarbon. If any of those processes were invalid, then the result should be the null hypothesis. But it’s not - no matter how much ARJ tries to obscure it, the exact number of varves in Japan is not the point, the cross-verification of unrelated fields is.
One of my favorite examples of this is from a paper from 2020. I cannot figure our how to add an image to this post, but in the paper is a graph that shows the amount of pollen in stalactites correlated according to Uranium-Thorium radio dating, compared against the ratio of oxygen-18 in greenland ice layers, correlated by individual counting. The graphs line up perfectly.
If radioisotope dating is inconsistent, and ice cores can form in a matter of months, and stalactites are not annual deposits, then there should be no pattern. The only way this makes sense is if these processes are proxies of previous paleoclimates.